The High Court of Telangana has directed the Commissioner of Police Anjani Kumar to probe into the case where a 52 year old wildlife hunter died in Police custody on May 26.
The bench was hearing a petition filed by Advocate P V Nagami who informed the bench that the deceased, Rangaiah along with three others went to the forest on the night of May 23 carrying high tension wire to trap wild boars. When the Manthani Police receive the information of a group moving in suspicious circumstances, they arrested all the four hunters and seized the electric wires.
On May 24, after the arrest, the police officially announced that all four of them were being remanded under judicial custody.
However, on the night of May 24, Rangaiah died in Police Station. The petitioner has submitted that the police described the death of Rangaiah as suicide by hanging himself with a dupatta in the early morning of May 26.
Thereafter the Police registered the case as death under suspicious circumstances and the body was sent to the government hospital for postmortem.
The petitioner has alleged that the police were trying to persuade the doctors to prepare a report saying that no wound was found on the body of the deceased so that the case could be closed as a suicide.
The petitioner has sought a direction the police to register the case as custodial death under secton 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code and murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
The bench has directed the Commissioner of Police to submit a report by June 5.
India Legal Bureau